LOS ANGELES - Netflix recently has taken new steps to make it harder for users to access the video-streaming service outside their home countries -- which is a violation of its terms of service.

But Netflix says there's nothing new about its strategy, and maintains that it's OK for subscribers to use virtual private networks (VPNs) as long as they can be verified as accessing the service within the country they're authorized for.

"There's been no change to our VPN policy," Netflix spokesman Cliff Edwards said in an e-mail.

An update to Netflix's Android app last fall included a hard-coded link to Google's domain name system (DNS), according to a post on piracy news site TorrentFreak. As a result, users with some "geo-dodging" services, which employ DNS systems that fake their locations, found themselves unable to access Netflix without reconfiguring their routers.

Using VPNs -- which can make it appear that a user is accessing the Internet in, say, the U.S., when they're actually in Australia -- or other location-spoofing services in order to bypass Netflix's geographic restrictions is forbidden by the company's terms of use. Netflix has always tried to block such unauthorized access, via a multistep verification process that encompasses credit card info, mailing addresses and Internet addresses.

"You may view a movie or TV show through the Netflix service primarily within the country in which you have established your account and only in geographic locations where we offer our service and have licensed such movie or TV show," the company's terms of use say. "Netflix will use technologies to verify your geographic location."

Naturally, the use of technical subterfuge to log in to Netflix has been especially rampant in countries where the company doesn't offer service. Between 50,000 and 200,000 people in Australia have used VPNs or other circumvention tools to access Netflix's streaming services illicitly, according to a report last year in The Australian. This March, Netflix plans to launch in Australia and New Zealand -- which stands to be an easier option for residents Down Under.

The geo-restrictions are in place because Netflix's licensing deals with studios cover specific countries where it has rights to stream movies and TV shows. In some cases, that content may already be exclusively licensed to another distributor in a given territory. For example, Netflix is unable to offer its marquee series House of Cards in France and Germany, where CanalPlus and Sky Deutschland, respectively, have exclusive local broadcast rights.

That said, Netflix has increasingly been trying to obtain worldwide distribution rights to content -- such as via its deal with Warner Bros. for the first season of Gotham, which kicks in after the Batman origin series finishes its broadcast run on Fox in the U.S.